Having grown up in a post Kerouac nation, at a time when he was all but forgotten,
and airlines ruled the travel scene, I was never able to connect the dots between what
constituted travel. I could ride with my parents in the car to the farthest reaches
of Dallas/Ft.Worth, which would take three hours or more, or I could hop onto a plane
and be in Ft.Madison, Iowa in the same amount of time. Gone were the generations of the
stereotypical traveling hobo, with a rucksack to his name and the whole nation to be seen
from a boxcar. Our generation's hobo became too content to leave the one profitable corner,
in one town. Gone by my time were those willing to pick up hitchhikers, and gone were
those willing to thumb up and try, a lack of trust in our fellow man killed that entire
system.
The dangers of the road? People. That's it. The road never changed, never will.
More simply than defying physics, logic, or God, the road has not been wizarded into
some asphalt-based maw. People have just somehow along the way lost perspective on the
true freedom that can be found thereon. Whether hauling an eighteen-rig cross-country or
cruising a few miles west by dirt bike, there you can find more adventure around every
bend than upon any aircraft.
Recently, the friends that i have made and the interests that i accrued changed my
paradigms and commitments and i have since become quite close to the pork and beans
hobo of old. Rubber tramping from Florida to Virginia to Alabama to New Orleans to
Dallas and Denver. The truck bed becomes an actual bed, rest areas become the closest thing
to real bathrooms. Antibacterial hand soap fairly easily becomes body wash and shampoo,
the miles add up, cash depletes, tinned food does not need to be heated, but you take it in
stride. The people in the cab of this beat up truck are my family, my closest friends and
relations.There becomes an undeniable essence of comraderie, and an unshakeable feeling that
you are not alone. 'The Road' ceases to be a means to your destination, it begins to feel as
though it's where you have been all along. Our home is the road, and there is no mortgage.
When this reality hits you, the most important revelation occurs. You realize that a town
does not matter at all. People make a place exponentially more than where it is you are headed.
The mundane disrepair of Detroit could be just as beautiful as the sun setting into the Grand
Canyon. If the smallest error occurs in the transmission or engine, we'll get a couple bucks
in scrap and keep moving forward.
While tramping through Orange Beach, AL we came upon a fantastic three day music
festival. We networked there, and found ourselves a roof to stay under in New Orleans
a few days later. By that rationale, our conclusion was this: There are good people, there
are wretched people; Some parts of the world are excruatingly desirable, others you would
rather die than experience. This makes it not just our option, but our obligation, to examine
all of these things for ourselves. Take the connecting flight instead of the nonstop. Don't
fly at all. There are entire worlds and independent environments between southern California
and Maine, from Seattle to Miami. Go out and see them! From Lewis and Clark to Jack Kerouac and
Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp), inspiration is all around us. We need to get back on
track and enjoy these gorgeous mountains, rivers, and valleys. Utilize the innumerable bridges and
interstates that your tax dollars have erected! Burn those precious fossil fuels doing something
real, rather than standing in some traffic jam or drive through.
